EU urged to help save Roumania's heritage - Balkan Insight

(Photo: Sorin Tanasie) Bravo!! Bravo!!! Loud cheers to the Paris Historique Association!!! This from today's Balkan Insight:

EU Urged to Intervene to Save Romania's Heritage

Petition asks European Union to get more closely involved in protecting Romania's ancient sites as mayor of Bucharest steps up plans to demolish more old buildings.
Marian Chiriac, Bucharest

Romanian heritage activists are urging the European Parliament to pass a law allowing it to intervene "if a member state, or a regional parliament or local authority" willfully destroys important items of local history.

The petition was initiated by Pierre Housieaux, founder of Paris Historique Association, who is also involved in the protection of Romania’s heritage.

"It is urgent that Europe becomes aware of the need to provide itself with a right-of-veto instrument to defend and conserve its greatest riches," the petition says.

The petition has been signed already by around 2,000 people and is supported by some members of the European Parliament. Romanian activists hope it will send a warning signal to Bucharest's mayor, who is planning to tear down an old indoor marketplace to make way for an enlarged road, crossing the capital.

Some 75 buildings, including 15 houses with significant heritage interest, have been demolished and 1,000 people evicted to make way for the project.

The activists scored a victory last week when a court declared illegal a document used as the basis for the demolition of more historic buildings. These demolitions have now been stopped, but the municipality intends to appeal against the decision.

"This is a partial victory in our fight to preserve old Bucharest and its heritage. It would be better if we had support from the European Union as the project brutally violates the principles of integrated city development," historian Andrei Pippidi said.

Bucharest Mayor Sorin Oprescu says the new road is "extremely necessary" to reduce traffic jams, as Bucharest was not designed to withstand today's heavy road usage. Furthermore, he said, the demolished buildings were in a bad state.

Many experts, however, dispute the mayor's thinking. "While most European capitals do the intelligent thing and syphon traffic away from the centre of the city, Bucharest officials do the contrary," architect Claudia Pamfil said.

"It would be better to keep the downtown far less congested instead of building a large road that will increase the number of cars coming into the centre," Pamfil added.

In the two decades since the overthrow of the Communist regime, Bucharest has gone through a massive period of urbanisation, which has seen many historical buildings razed to make way for commercial developments.

Meanwhile, traffic jams cause serious public discomfort, from downtown areas to the more peripheral residential districts.

Comments

[sairj]

No news about Florentina at all...the trial happened, I guess, when there were more important things to report, like Libya, Egypt etc. nothing on internet and no one knows anything...

As for the above, Valentin you're right!! We must draw lots of attention to the issue. I think the only way to stop this is to shame the destructive demolishing mitocani... their reputations are important to them especially from abroad...

[balbeck]

They are very bad,they like to destroy.

[balbeck]

They distroy all the country.
@Do u have news about Florentina Carstea?

[valentin]

Thank you for the news! Its important to dra attention,maybe the one in charge with architecture will take action!IF UE is ready to sart the infringment process against Ro for not taking care of wild birds maybe the historical heritage will have a chance!